Tense but Flawed, 'Debt' Defaults on Drama

There are movies you want to like that just won't let you. Take "The Debt," the occasionally electrifying espionage thriller from director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love")—a film that, on paper, has all the ingredients of a classic: an Olympian ensemble of top-flight actors, the white-knuckle capture of a Nazi war criminal in 1966 East Berlin and a plot twist as unruly as a basket of snakes.

It also has a flaw in its DNA. Based on the Israeli film "Ha-Hov" (2007), and starring Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and the ubiquitous newcomer Jessica Chastain ("Tree of Life," "The Help" and next month's "Texas Killing Fields"), "The Debt" opens in 1997, as three ex-Mossad agents and Israeli national heroes—Rachel Singer (Ms. Mirren); her ex-husband, Stephan Gold (Mr. Wilkinson); and their former colleague, David Peretz (Ciarán Hinds)—are reuniting for the first time in years. The occasion is the release of a book about their celebrated abduction and killing of the notorious "Surgeon of Birkenau," aka Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), a combination Mengele/Eichmann who was holed up safely in East Germany until his abduction by the trio's younger selves (played by Ms. Chastain, Marton Csonkas and Sam Worthington).

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Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson in 'The Debt.'
Focus Features

The book being celebrated is by Rachel and Stephan's daughter, Sarah (Romi Aboulafia), who has had less than unfettered access to the facts. For one thing, her mother was in love with David 30 years earlier. For another...well, it's not entirely clear, this being a mystery, but a late-breaking allegation prompts David, en route to the book lunch, to step in front of a speeding truck (an astounding scene, mere moments into the film). Although Rachel and Stephan clearly despise each other—there are sumptuously poisonous exchanges between Ms. Mirren and Mr. Wilkinson, both of whom are predictably terrific—they have to form an ad-hoc confederacy, discover the truth and, perhaps, prevent it from coming out.

The tone of "The Debt," particularly at the outset, is of high-end British television drama, which is certainly OK—these actors have done some pretty spectacular TV, notably Ms. Mirren and Mr. Hinds, who shared the small screen in the early days of "Prime Suspect." And the film is articulate in a manner that most grunting action thrillers assiduously avoid. Granted, Mr. Madden's film meanders at the beginning, more or less ambling to the point, but when it gets there the sometimes brutal action is shot tightly, even claustrophobically. The resulting immediacy and tension are contagious—even in scenes that don't necessarily need the help: During the setup to the kidnapping of Vogel, who has been practicing as a gynecologist, Rachel pretends to be a patient, which presents an image—an Israeli woman in stirrups, being examined by a Nazi war criminal—that is more than a little excruciating. The idea that Ms. Chastain will grow up to be Ms. Mirren provides a mild form of cosmic solace, but certainly not enough.

The best part of the film involves the kidnapping itself, the evading of border guards, a hiccup in the escape plan and the subsequent care and feeding of Vogel while the three agents hatch an alternate scheme. With Vogel tied to a radiator, spitting, writhing and driving them all to distraction, David fights his attraction to Rachel in the spirit of duty while Stephan plays on her vulnerability and gets her into bed. Vogel, meanwhile, is a Teutonic Hannibal Lecter, torturing his captors with a sadistic analysis of why the Holocaust was allowed to happen. They all want to kill him. The audience wants to kill him. Be patient: Things may work out.

"The Debt" deals with the age-old question of whether truth is preferable to an untruth that serves the greater good. Which is precisely where the movie goes awry. Any self-respecting period piece, historical drama or even caper movie—and "The Debt" is all three—balances issues of global significance with interpersonal drama. The problem here is that the personal eclipses the global. The stakes are too low. The action isn't propelled by the good of Israel and the selflessness of the protagonists. It's moved by the desperation of the older characters, principally Rachel, to protect their reputations. They have done something wrong and don't want it revealed, which is not the same as kidnapping a war criminal to avenge the honor of one's country, and people, which is what the flashback portion of the film is about.

Without giving too much away, "The Debt" is ultimately dissatisfying because the alleged heroes aren't really accomplishing anything, not even atonement. They're just covering their tracks. Which is less than heroic.

'Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life'

We all have our favorite example of an artist's life being massacred at the movies, even if it happens less frequently now than in the life-altering Hollywood of old. Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Mozart have been treated pretty well; Bobby Darin, Billie Holiday and Cole Porter (a multiple victim) have not. The fault lies in forcing a life to fit the demands of popular film—rather than vice versa, as in Todd Haynes's Bob Dylan movie, "I'm Not There," for instance, or "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life," the mischievous, impressionistic hybrid by comic-book artist Joann Sfar.

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Laetitia Casta and Eric Elmosnino in 'Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.'
Music Box Films

A pop singer, sexual provocateur and the personification of Frenchified 1960s cool, Serge Gainsbourg was a child of Nazi-occupied France, wore the yellow star and grew up to be a cultural icon and lover of epic scope (his partners included Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Gréco and Jane Birkin, with whom he produced the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg). Mr. Sfar covers all the bio bases, but in a manner that rejects the conventional as blithely as did Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino). The movie is a mix of the surreal and sexy: Gainsbourg is accompanied throughout his life by a larger-than-life-size marionette that represents a Jewish caricature he saw as a boy. He cavorts licentiously with the above-named beauties (Laetitia Casta, Anna Mouglalis and Lucy Gordon, respectively). All around him, magical realism rises like a possessed soufflé. What may feel like Mr. Sfar's indulgences are sometimes just that, but one could hardly make an honest movie about Gainsbourg that wasn't as recklessly ambitious as this.

'Love Crime'

The death in August 2010 of Alain Corneau marked another shortening of the ranks of world-class directors capable of, or interested in, being the cinematic sand in our intellectual oysters. In 1991, Mr. Corneau directed "Tous les Matins du Monde," and is represented posthumously by "Love Crime," a delicious thriller that gets under the skin à la "All About Eve," albeit with a twist: The craft here is still theater, but of the workplace rather than the stage.

Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier) is the brilliant, exploited second in command in the Paris office of an American corporation, whose boss, Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), is using Isabelle's brains to advance her own career. Although the movie is a murder story, with the crime almost too ingeniously planned and executed, the movie might have been called "An Anatomy of Style": Isabelle has none, Christine has nothing but, and it is masterly the way Mr. Corneau illuminatesthe way in which the world we create around us reflects our inner demons. Equally brilliant is the casting: Ms. Scott Thomas, the hardest-working Brit in French film, is alarmingly good, but the surprise is Ms. Sagnier, who has spent most of her career making heterosexual male pulses race and here is all but stripped of allure, and quite purposefully so.

'Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame'

It is late seventh-century China. Empress Wu (Carina Lau) is about to become the first female ruler of China. A 100-story-tall monument is being built in the capital city. Everywhere is feudal-era formality. Meanwhile, as an introductory title tells us, "all hell is about to break loose." Literally: People are bursting into flames. The effect is delightful.

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Bingbing Li in 'Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.'
(Indomina Releasing

As is his wont, Vietnam-born Hong Kong action master Tsui Hark ("Once Upon a Time in China") marries the traditional trappings of the period kung-fu movie to flippant humor and state-of-the-art technology. Some of the action in "Detective Dee" is computer-generated hallucination, some is just good-old life-threatening stunt work, but it is almost always a thrill. The pulp-fictional hero is inhabited by the charismatic Andy Lau who, together with Chinese stars Bingbing Li, Ms. Lau and Tony Leung Ka-fai, makes "Detective Dee" the most purely entertaining film of our vanishing summer.

—Mr. Anderson contributes film criticism and coverage to a variety of publications. Joe Morgenstern is on vacation.

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